Local Delicious

The second step in my community garden site preparation was to figure out a way to increase water retention — this may be the ONLY place you ever see water retention listed as a positive. Garden boxes apparently have a tendency to dry out more quickly than fully in-ground gardens. Blend that with the fact that we have to lug our water to the garden in buckets from a hose across the street, and you have significant incentive to find ways to limit water loss.

One of the fellows in the 16 Oaks Community Garden showed me what he’d done, mixing in a bunch of peat moss with the soil. His test showed that it did help keep the area damp and the area below the peat mixture was totally dry. On my next trip out to the nursery I was checking out the peat moss options when I noticed a peat alternative, made of coconut husks (coir). Cool! I’d read that peat moss is a diminishing resource so finding an alternative was a pleasant surprise. I mean, coconuts just keep growing, right? (Though there are no perfect answers, as you’ll recognize if you think about the carbon miles required to bring coconut coir to your local gardening shop.)

I picked up a couple of packages of Beats Peat, which are highly compressed bricks of the stuff which have to be soaked before being blended in with your soil. My first attempt consisted of dropping the bricks into my still-void-of-compost box and pouring copious amounts of water over them in order to soak them. It took a lot of lugging of water (see water source note, above) and, after a couple of hours, not much result.

I poked and prodded them with a rake in order to break them up as they became saturated, but it was slow going and I didn’t get far before I decided to soak them in a large plastic bucket overnight. Next day I took each brick out, and raked it apart. It was yet another prison-labour-camp exercise in back breaking work.

Right about the time I was finishing up the last of the 8 total bricks, a fellow garden I’ve seen around stopped by.

“Hey, I used that stuff too, it’s great. Yup, just soaked it in a barrel until it was soup, then poured it over the soil.” What?! I’d soaked and raked and soaked and raked. Dang! If I’d just done some research I’d have doubtless come across the watching-paint-dry-video that showed the quick(er) way to do it.

There’s lots more info on coconut coir and how it use it in the garden, with a quick Internet search.

The Bumbling Gardener’s garden has recently been outfitted with a sleek set of soaker hoses. As a complement to the rain barrel, which does not provide enough pressure to reach to the end of the soaker hose, we’ll water on a weekly basis and supplement with the rain barrel, on the assumption that we’ll get enough rain during the season to do so.

(I now actually hope for the occasional rainy, summer day. This is VERY odd.)

A quick search of the Internet turned up numerous sites that explain how to use a soaker hose, most making it much more complicated that it needs to be, with timers and pressure gauges, etc. In a nutshell:

• Wrap the hoses around your garden
• Feel free to cover them with dirt or mulch
• They have about a 12″ – 18″ reach
• Soak less frequently for longer so the water goes deep and so do the plant roots

My favourite thing is, you save about 70% of the water you’d use if you watered with a sprinkler and none of it evaporates into the air. I thought the claims were a bit far-fetched, but site after site says the same thing — and what do I know, anyway?

A few notes…

The first hose I bought promptly cracked at the nozzle end, but it came with a 4 year guarantee and the store happily exchanged it.

When I first laid out the hose it was pretty stiff and unwieldy, so I held it in place with lengths of trimmed tree branches from the compost pile, sunk into the soil. Now that it’s had water run through it a few times, it’s fully pliable and I’ve been able to remove the sticks and reposition as necessary for optimal coverage.

I swear, I’m not searching this stuff out, it’s just coming out of the woodwork! I haven’t sent a request for information to anyone, and the friend who sent me this mass-forwarded presentation doesn’t even know I’ve been blogging about water.

I can’t vouch for the source of the info, but even if it’s only half or even a quarter true it’s still going to make you stop and contemplate where your water is coming from, how it got to you, and what’s going to happen to the container it came in when you’re done.

Water Disaster

If you are interested in the question of bottled versus tap water quality, Food & Water Watch has prepared the must-read Take Back the Tap report which covers the many angles of this issue, including:

• The bottled water purity myth
• Minimal bottled vs stringent municipal quality regulations
• The damaging affects to local farms and communities

For more info on the issues, check out our posts on the world/local water issue documentaries, Blue Gold and Flow as well.

Yeah, you read that title right, “Who owns our water?” If you think that’s like asking “Who owns our air” you’re onto something. Pretty crazy isn’t it? But the weirdest part is, people running big corporations already own some people’s water and are looking to own yours. Then they can sell it to the highest bidder. And, if that isn’t you, you may well be out o’ luck.

My switch to local tap water, even on the go, came just before I discovered two documentaries on global and local water issues. Blue Gold and Flow deal with the issue differently, but have the same underlying message — we need to know what’s happening with the water in our world.

Note to self: if it can happen in Paris, it can happen here and then some.

Not only do the folks behind Flow want you to know what’s happening with water consumption and privatization, they encourage viewers to take action. Whether it’s signing an Article 31 online petition to update the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ensuring access to clean water as a fundamental human right, or connecting with one of the many organizations focused on water issues, the necessary tools to become informed are provided.

I suspect like most people, I had a vague sense that water privatization doesn’t seem like a good idea. Now I know why.

Fresh, drinkable water as a diminishing resource is a global issue, but it’s also a local concern. More local than you may realize and more in jeopardy than you may be comfortable knowing. I didn’t have any more than a vague idea until recently.

I came across a couple of documentaries about water issues shortly after being taken to task for carrying around a case of bottled water in my trunk.

The first movie is Blue Gold, based on a book of that name by Tony Clarke and Maude Barlow, outspoken activists on the issues of water privatization. It’s a serious eye opener about how much water we have on the planet (97% is salt, 3% is fresh, and the bulk of the “fresh” is actually polluted), what’s happening with it, and how we all will be affected if something doesn’t change.

Forget Hollywood, this documentary has political corruption, class clashes, violence, bloodshed…and plenty of suspense and drama. Think the threat of other countries taking our fresh water is science fiction? I recommend watching the movie and getting a little more informed about what we will be up against in the not-very-distant future.

• Did you know that the large, multinational, drink producing companies (they are household names) are sucking out ground water around the world at an astonishing rate — for free — and seriously affecting water tables and local farming?
• Did you know there are (barely enforced) standards for bottled water contents, but none for soft drinks made from the same water?
• Did you know that soft drinks cost significantly less than bottled water in many developing countries?
• Do you know the abysmal track record of water privatization companies worldwide where costs have tripled for reduced service and the poor can’t pay so they don’t get clean water?
• Ever tried to live without clean water?

Having seen the movie, I’m even more happy I switched from bottled to local tap water, and I’ll be keeping an eye out in the media for any rumblings about privatizing or selling our incredible natural resource, the one we take so for granted every day and frequently complain about.

Now, what to do with that Dasani bottle in the fridge that came with last week’s bundled picnic lunch? I certainly don’t want to drink it…